We Only Rest in the Storm

My best friend Cody says he’s going to grow gills if he keeps catching tadpoles with his bare hands, legs muddy all the way to his knees, pockets full of jellybean rocks and bottle caps. I say that’s stupid, but I watch him catching them by the palmful anyway, trace the curve of his spine through his faded tee, wondering what it would be like to swim in his hands like the little creatures, weightless and unbothered.

 

We scoop the tadpoles from the ditch behind Mrs. Flannery’s, green-black and wriggling in Slurpee cups. Mom says I shouldn’t bring them into the house, says they’ll die or turn the tub into a swamp. So, Cody and I smuggle them into the yard and hide them under the barbecue set, betting which will lose its tail first.

 

After dinner, Mom smokes on the porch while Cody lines up the cups on the windowsill, making a parade of their dark, amphibian eyes. He names the tadpoles after his favorite wrestlers and some of the lost neighborhood dogs: Macho Man, Peanut, Lucky. I press my face to the window and exhale until my breath makes the glass cloudy, recreating for the tadpoles the fog on their home lake.

 

Later, Cody asks what it feels like to have a dad that is not around. I shrug and say it’s like having a skinned knee, fine at first and sore after you notice all the damage. I can tell he doesn’t believe me, or simply doesn’t care. He just nods and sings a lullaby to the tadpoles, something low and tuneless, his fatherly thumb drawing circles along the Slurpee cups.

 

By morning, two tadpoles have gone belly up, looking dead-white. Cody buries them in the flowerbed with a stolen spoon, says it’s good luck, says things that die in summer will be reborn in winter in a whole new shape.

 

We watch the rest paddle in lazy circles, their fat tails flicking about. I ask if he really wants to grow gills, really wants to disappear, and Cody grins and says, “Only if you come with me.”

 

The air smells like mud and warm grass, and my hands itch with wanting. I nod, and for a minute we listen to the adult frogs singing down by the ditch, their voices echoing through the half-open window, wild and discordant and growing louder and louder around us.​

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